wunderkammer

THE EARTH COLLECTION: State of Nature

by John Gould 

When Bay area poets met at the Berkeley Art Museum in the spring of 2009 as part of an exhibit exploring the relationship between art and nature, former Poet Laureate Robert Hass began his introductions with a lament over the declining value we ascribe to the natural world. 

The Oxford Junior Dictionary had just announced it was making room for modern technological terms like BlackBerry, voicemail, blog, and broadband by dropping words like dandelion, acorn, beaver, heron, otter, willow, and yes, blackberry.  A primary criteria for what should go on the cutting block: “how often words would be used by young children.”  

It’s a chilling, prescriptive stance. A common signpost that signals a turning away from the natural world to one of machines. It’s begging for someone to notice—someone to remind us of what it is to be human. My father reminds me, as he worries about cell-phone reception in Hawaii, that some Native American traditions hold that the human race will come to a crossroads in its evolution, where we either chose the road of natural systems (health) or technology (decline). He puts my poetry on his fridge. And this: 

Fortunately, nature has a few big places beyond man’s power to spoil—the ocean, the two icy ends of the globe, and the Grand Canyon.  

How naive Muir’s words sound. Mass extinctions, prolonged droughts and flooding—the ice caps melting and huge dead zones in the oceans—human activity turning nature against survival itself.  

Hass’s reaction—“Poets have much work to do.”  

THE EARTH COLLECTION: Coal People

by John Heckman Wright                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

Those who talk of clean coal have never lived near a coalfield.  I was born in Eastern Kentucky just after the miner’s strikes against the Duke Power Company down in Harlan County, Kentucky.  My family lived on the rim of the Appalachian Plateau, so my dad’s job wasn’t to dig the coal from the mines but to haul it all across Kentucky and West Virginia, sometimes up to Ohio and even down to Indiana.

By the mid- 1980’s the coal boom that swept through Eastern Kentucky in spurts from the turn of the century to its peak in the 1970’s was well on its way to drying up.   

Dad lost his job when the trucking company he had worked for since he was a teenager went bankrupt.  The coal that was left in the mountains was getting harder to reach, and unions had won little victories over the years that made the cost of extracting that coal steeper for the coal companies.  It would be nearly a decade before the companies would launch a new campaign, Mountain Top Removal, and this time they wouldn’t need so many workers to drill into the side of the mountains to remove the coal.  In this new world, instead of drilling, the company would just level the mountain and take the coal from the center.

On the way down Lucky Holler to the nearest mouth of the Licking River we pass a small wood house with a tin roof and a ringer-washer on the front porch. Boyd and Kathy live here alone in this old holler. They don’t have electricity or running water, so they pull their water from the creek and sit around at dusk by lantern light, head to bed before the stars come out.

Writers as Kids: [West Tallahassee Community College]

Writing by Sean Lovelace

Pictured: Amanda Marbais

West Tallahassee Community College                                                                                                             page 3

 

Instructor Fleck, PhD.  

Art 108 Midterm Exam

 22.) Define the term juxtaposition:

You throe one thing than another you end up with a third lose thing that is different that the first two things once the right time passes. Like when I make beer at the house.

23.) Define the term perspective.                                                                  

I remember I guess I was 12 and my first remington and it said the little book their to clan the gun that the gun was packed in shipping grease and oil clean it good before you go hunting I took it to my grandpa and I say grandpa how do I do this I don’t know much I am 12 to and he put his cigar down and took my remington and walked outside and shot it right up in the air I mean both barells loud and he handed it back to me and said Boy, that’s how you clean a damn shotgun.

 ·         Using the theoretical concepts and vocabulary we have discussed to this point, briefly comment on the four images below. Please be sure to address perspective, iconography, and juxtaposition.

24.) “Sunday B Morning” by Andy Warhol

 That is a can of tomato soup. I told you everybody I know eats ketchup sandwiches has that can of soup in their pantree and you said that’s the point exactly that was my favrite class Ok.

 25.) “Hard Teachings” by Sven Pheers .

 That there a picture a Hummer truck with one of them Jesus fishes on the back. That’s a nice truck. Good winch to.

 26.) “Monogram” by Robert Rauschenberg.

 A tire stick on a goat. I have seen goats do worst things. We own goats so I can answer this one easy. A goat always wants to go up higher. Our goats always stand on cars and one time we found one on the roof. It clumb up the truck onto the cab then jump onto the roof I guess. We could not get him down so grandpa shot it with a rifle. We cooked it hole in the ground like the Mexicans. That was first time I seen my grandpa fall. He fell after he shot the goat. It scared me OK.

 27.) “Sunday Girl” by Robert S. Fleck.

You did this photo? That is cool I didn’t even know you were a big artest. That is Britney Barnes if you want to know her names. I seen her in those same boots. We were all over there fooling around with her mom and drinking beer and Britney spent the whole time out on the front porch. She always stays out there waiting. Then her mom had enough and walked out there in her underwear (she looks awesome in her bra and panties I don’t care she is 30) and she said Britney! Let me tell you something. Your dad was a sons a bitch and he ain’t never coming back! And those ain’t even his boots. Not even near so.

That’s all I know on that photo I mean my perspctive. I am done.

Don't Call Me Mother: I'd Only Be a Breeder if Kim Deal Asked Me to Join the Band

by Sadie Pfannkuche

Illustrations by Justin Graham

In second grade I desperately wanted a Baby Alive doll. I don’t remember why-I didn’t play with dolls as a rule-and the only other doll I had ever requested was a Wonder Woman action figure. I had the biggest crush on Wonder Woman/Lynda Carter in the history of girl crushes.  Some secret part of me wanted to touch her and change her out of the drab utilitarian uniform of her public life into the glamorous metallic and silky costume of her secret life. Yes that’s right, in short, I wanted to touch and possibly fondle Wonder Woman’s boobies. And that desire hasn’t completely disappeared. To this day when I see her on television hawking mail order contact lens I have this urge to grope her. 

But back to the Baby Alive (she never had a proper name; I only called her by her product  name.) She was a facsimile of the real thing- made of soft plastic; she had a permanently pursed mouth, ready for a bottle or the plastic feeding spoon full of fake baby food that was included with her.   I dutifully fed and bottled her only to realize within seconds that Baby Alive was much too much like the real thing. The food and water that went into her mouth, exited her bottom almost immediately. Now I know that as an adult, this makes sense, but at the age of 7, I hadn’t grasped even the most basic points of Newtonian physics. So it never occurred to me to question what happened to the “food” that Baby Alive ingested. Within seconds of feeding her, her diaper was full of creamy fake baby food, green, if I remember correctly. 

I refused to feed her again and, instead, carried her around for a few days out of obligation even though I wanted nothing more than to have Santa Claus take her back to the demented toy workshop from whence she came.  

When I no longer felt guilty, I stopped paying her any attention at all and relegated her to the shelves with the unloved stuffed animals. 

Even when I see an actual live baby, no matter how cute, my heart does not flop about like some emo boy’s bangs. I don’t make cooing noise and my body continues to run as normal, without the faintest  tock of a biological clock. What am I thinking instead, you ask?  

Don't Call Me Mother: Motherhoodlessness

by Miki Howald

I

What is it like to be a woman who knows she doesn’t want children? It means to have everyone doubt you, and to doubt your ability to know your own desires. It means to always be second-guessed by family, friends, lovers, doctors—to be told how it is, what you don’t know. It means to disappoint your loved ones: You’ll never understand how I feel, how much I love you, my mother says, unless you have children of your own.

I work in family support services, and all day we promote children as the future, families as the foundation of society. All day I hear women say: I’m a mother first. I don’t even know what that means. Is she a person second? A woman third? Where does she consider writer or friend or lover? I always think to myself, but I am me first. Do I just lack the motherhood desire? Is that so unnatural, so unheard of? 

II

Sex and babies occupy completely separate spheres in my head, and I hate to be reminded that sex—that wonderful, exhausting, addictive thing I love—can produce children. Recently a friend posted pictures of her newborn on Facebook with the status line update: We made this from scratch! and with that one line my favorite activity was tainted, turned into something I’d rather avoid. I reminded myself to call the doctor the next day and make an appointment to discuss an IUD. 

I’d like to ask the doctor about tying my tubes, but I’m afraid of hearing the paternalistic advice that I might change my mind later. You’re still young, you might meet a nice man and fall in love. I wonder if doctors ever warn women who are eager to have kids: you might meet a real asshole who hits you and uses your children against you. I hope they do. 

Don't Call Me Mother: Auctions and Archives

by Ellen Placey Wadey                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

To this day, when I sit in writing workshops, I feel the anxiety cranking under my sternum. As we discuss other writers’ pieces -- their characters and plot lines and epiphanies and listen to them explain the complex details of the rest of the story: intricately woven events and reversals and awe-inspiring denouements, I think, “Jeez, I wish that I knew what was going to happen next.” All I have are broad sketches of incomplete characters who have compulsions they can’t articulate. They aren’t really sure why they have been rendered in the first place let alone what they are supposed to be doing. Most times, I don’t have anything past what is on the page and a belief that over time more will be revealed – both to me and any readers who stick around long enough to find out. So, I keep bringing my poor characters – faint, disoriented and reluctant as bats – into the workshop sunlight to be dissected, so that I can see them better, so that they can tell me what they want to do next. The closest thing I have to a plot line is a hunch.

Not having a child dawned similarly for me. There were times in my life when I was sure that I would have children. It was expected, anticipated even. Many of my friends from college got married right after graduation and started their families right away. My mother said what most mothers say, “When you have your kids…,” and I went along with the daydream. 

I can’t point to a day or a discussion when my husband and I made the choice not to be parents. We didn’t debate over-population or our sketchy gene pools – something that probably could be used as a very effective means of birth control for a host of people – or even the more mundance concerns about our limited resources or the clamp children would put our freedom. It might sound lame, but having children just never made its way to the top of our list. Other things kept getting bumped up in priority – both of us working on degrees, paying off debt…then acquiring new debt, spending lots of hours building careers, even a health concern – but any of that could have been negotiated with having children, but none of it was.

Don't Call Me Mother: FETAL ALCOHOL JESUS

by Allison Gruber

The Onion once ran an article whose headline read, “Like Having Big Boxes Of Shit In Your House? Get A Cat!”

I think about motherhood similarly. Want to be plagued by feelings of inadequacy and incessantly reminded of your own mortality? Tired of having your own needs met? Be a mom!

While I’m certain motherhood has its rewards, I’m also certain that so to do lobotomies, high colonics, and root canals.

When I think of motherhood, I think oppression. But this is coming from someone who finds her cat a little too demanding; in my estimation goldfish are too needy; I get bored quickly; the novelty wears off fast; I don’t want anything that can’t be returned; In relationships, “liking me too much” is a deal breaker; I don’t want a perpetual condition; I hate the question, Do you want to hold the baby? -- because it’s not really a question; I hate the sight of toys strewn about a room; the first time I babysat my niece, while changing her diaper I got shit on my hand and reacted as though I’d been shot.

I am simply not cut from maternal cloth.  

Truth be told, even as a kid, I wasn’t so fond of kids. I remember one morning in 1984 when my mother, pregnant with my sister, tried to break the news of the impending sibling by asking me, “What if God wanted me to have another baby?” 

I think she expected that by virtue of my being a girl, and by presenting the pregnancy as a mandate from God, I would have no choice but to be agreeable. 

Nevertheless, all of eight years old, I looked her square in the face and said, “You tell him ‘no.’” 

And so my sister became my very first lesson in “that which is out of your control.”  

Don't Call Me Mother: Mrs. Peck

by Kelly Kleiman

The only time I ever had any doubt about my decision not to have children was in the eighth grade, when I discovered that Ellen Peck was also unalterably opposed to having them.  Ellen Peck was my eighth-grade English teacher.  She was young and gorgeous and wore miniskirts and a peace symbol and all the boys were in love with her, so she promptly wrote an advice book called “How to Get a Teenaged Boy and What to Do With Him When You Get Him.”  Of course she got the assistance of her girl pupils in writing it–me most conspicuously not among them.  Hell hath no fury like a schoolgirl scorned and so I hated Mrs. Peck and disdained everything she favored, including straight blonde hair, freckle-covering makeup, and the McCarthy campaign.

But during her book tour for “How to Get a Teenaged Boy”--she got a book tour!--Mrs. Peck announced that her next book would be called “The Baby Trap,” and started getting quoted saying things like, “People ask when we’re going to start a family, and I tell them, ‘A husband and wife ARE a family,’” and “People have children for all kinds of reasons, most of them bad."  I couldn’t have agreed more--except that it was Mrs. Peck. 

Don't Call Me Mother

a Wunderkammer theme week curated by Ellen Placey Wadey

The language of classification – unless it’s of the objective scientific variety – isn’t one that we accept readily. We resist labels because they never get the full picture of who we are: complicated, contradictory, often confused people. Resisting a label is even harder when you purposefully stand outside one of the most beloved human conditions: motherhood. In a world filled with constant options and increasing tolerance, one would think the choice not to be a mother wouldn’t be a big deal. But the reactions tell a different story. When you answer, “No,” to the question, “Do you have children?” the responses vary from pity – the assumption being that you’re infertile – to judgment – the assumption being that you don’t like children because you’re too self-absorbed. The number of men and women who won’t be parents is significant – some studies calculate as much as 25% of the population and growing. Then why are we still so suspicious of women who have chosen not to have children? The reasons for the choice are as varied as the women who make it. The following is just a sample of those voices. Part of an ongoing project, “Don’t Call Me Mother,” seeks to open a space for the stories and poetry of women who have decided that mother won’t be one of their labels. If you’d like to participate in this project, please contact Ellen Wadey at ellen.wadey@gmail.com with the subject line: Don't Call Me Mother.

Image by Trinette Mura

Shaking

by Adam Moskowitz                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

I was being a volunteer at an old airport base where there was a huge concert, but the work was not hard because nobody did anything to anyone else, and my duties as a volunteer were to watch out for people doing things wrong to other people. I was happy nobody was doing those things because I was kind of short and skinny, and my arms just sort of dangled like they didn't have anything to do. Sometimes I worried that they were always like that, that they always had nothing to do, and I should be using my arms more for things other than having them swing around like they did. I worried that the tissue would harden and become rigid and wrap itself tightly around the bone, and then after a while not only would I not be able to use my arms anymore, but they wouldn't even dangle. They would be useless, unused hanging parts always by my sides. They would be able to feel pain, but that would be all.

A kind of fat guy walked up to me. He had a hip pack and a red beard, and for a second I knew he must have been from Vermont or New Hampshire. I was sure I was right even though I had never been to New Hampshire, and only Vermont once. He pulled a sugar cube out of a hip pocket and told me that it wasn't just a regular sugar cube. I didn't know if I was supposed to say congratulations or maybe just wow, but it sounded like he expected me to say one of those things. What could I say to make him feel more pleased? That is what I wondered. Because that's what talking is sometimes, maybe even a lot. And then you get your turn sometimes for people to say things to you that make you more pleased.

“You're one of those volunteers,” he said, and kind of held onto the word volunteers. “You guys! You...thank you so much!” he kept on. “All of us here...this is all you!” he said, and I thought maybe he was shaking. “What's your family?” he asked.

“You mean do I have brothers sisters?” His eyes closed, but it looked like he was still looking at something really hard, like maybe the thing was under his eyelids.

“We're family. You know that?” His arm was on my shoulder squeezing it a little. I thought he was trying to find a specific place, a particular bone that was the part you were supposed to squeeze when you wanted someone to know something really important. And then I found myself talking a little differently, like everything I said to him was so that he would be pleased.